"It was Emily's step."—Page 411.
"It was Emily's step."—Page 411.
Grandmamma was very much pleased with Lucy's stories
"I don'tcare so much now," said Henry, meeting them at the door; "John says he will go with us, if it is to the world's end, or as far as the moon; and Betty says she will go too; and we can take the horse and Mag—so we shall do. But grandmamma is up and has had her breakfast, and we have got the Bath-chair ready, and she says that she will let us draw her round the garden; and I am to pull, and John says he will come and push, if the lady's-maid is not there too. He says that the worst thing about going with us, is that lady's-maid; and he hopes, for that reason, that the house will be very large."
Lucy and Emily ran to their grandmother; she was in the drawing-room; she kissed and blessed them, and looked at them with tears in her eyes.
"Grandmamma," said Lucy, "we have thought about it, and we will go with you to The Grove, and be your own children; only we would like you best to stay here."
"My own sweet children," replied the old lady, "we willrefer all these things to your papa and mamma. I am too old, and you are too young, to manage worldly matters; so we will leave these cares to those who are neither so young nor so old; God will guide them, I know, to what is best."
"Come, grandmamma," said Henry, putting his head only into the room, "the carriage is ready."
"And so am I," said the old lady, and she stepped out into the passage, and was soon in her Bath-chair.
John was ready to push, but seeing the maid come out to take her place behind the chair, he walked away without a word.
Miss Tilney, as she called herself, had not much to say before her mistress, so that she did not disturb the little party.
They did not go beyond the garden, but stopped often in shady places, where one of the children sat at their grandmother's feet, and the others on the grass.
The old lady seemed sometimes to have difficulty to be cheerful. She was often thinking, no doubt, of what was going on at The Grove, for the funeral was not over. She could not yet speak of the children she had lost.
Lucy guessed what made her sad, and for some minutes she was thinking what she could say to amuse her; she thought of several subjects to speak about; and, young as she was, settled in her own mind she must not speak of anything sad. At last she thought of what she would say, and she began by asking her if she saw a high piece of ground covered with trees at some distance.
"I do, my dear," replied the old lady.
"Would you like to hear about an old house which is beyond that wood?"
The grandmother was not so desirous of hearing about the old house, as she was to hear how her little grand-daughter could talk. By the words of children we may learn a great deal of their characters, and how they have been taught; and so she begged Lucy to tell her about this old house.
It was Mrs. Goodriche's house that Lucy meant: and she began by telling what sort of a house it was; and who lived in it now; and what a kind lady she was; and how they went often to see her; and what pretty stories she could tell them, particularly about Mrs. Howard.
"Mrs. Howard!" repeated old Mrs. Fairchild, "I have heard of her; I knew the family of the Symondses well. Do, Lucy, tell me all you know about that good lady."
How pleasant it was to Lucy to think that she had found out the very thing to amuse her grandmother; and she went on, and on, until, with a word or two now and then from Emily, she had told the two stories of Mrs. Howard, and told them very prettily and straightforward—not as Henry would have done, with the wrong end foremost, but right forward, and everything in its place. Mrs. Fairchild had always accustomed her little girls to give accounts of any books they read; and Lucy had always been particularly clever in doing this exercise well.
Grandmamma was very much pleased with Lucy's stories—pleased every way; and it might be seen that she was so by her often asking her to go on.
The maid was also much amused, and when Lucy had told all, she said to her mistress:
"Indeed, ma'am, Miss Lucy is a most charming young lady, as agreeable as she is pretty, and I am sure you have the greatest reason to be proud of her; and, indeed, of the other young lady, too, Miss Emily; and Master Fairchild himself, he does honour to his family."
"None of this, Tilney, I beg," said the old lady; "I rejoice in what I see of these dear children, and I thankGod on their account; but we must not flatter them. I thank my Lucy for her stories, and her wishes to amuse poor grandmamma; and I thank my gentle Emily for the help she has given; but as to little boys in pinafores doing honour to their families, you must know that is quite out of the question. It is enough for me to say that I love my little boy, and that I find him very kind, and that I think his dear papa and mamma have, so far, brought him up well."
About noon the little party went into the house: the old lady lay down to read, and the rest went to their own rooms. They met again at dinner, and at tea; then came another airing; and they finished the day with reading the Bible and prayers.
Several days passed much in the same way, till Mr. Fairchild returned. He brought grandmamma's own servant with him; and Miss Tilney, to the great joy of John and Betty, went the next day.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild had much business to do, for it was settled that they were all to move to The Grove in the autumn; but the old lady, having her own maid with her, and having become very fond of the children, did not depend on her son and daughter for amusement.
After Mr. Fairchild returned, she went out much farther in the Bath-chair, and was drawn to many of the places loved by the children. That summer was one of the finest ever known in the country, and many were the hours spent by the little party about the Bath-chair, in the shade of the woods.
At these times grandmamma would often speak of the children she had lost, and of the happy years which she had spent with them. How very pleasant good and cheerful old people are! They are pleasanter than young ones, because they have seen so much, and have so manyold stories to tell. Grandmamma remembered the time when ladies wore large hoops and long ruffles and lappets, and when gentlemen's coats were trimmed with gold lace. She could tell of persons who had been born abovea hundred years ago, persons she had herself seen and talked to; and her way of talking was not like that of many grown-up people who make children covetous and envious. That was not grandmamma's way; she was like the eagle in the fable, always trying to encourage her eaglets to fly upwards; and she did this so pleasantly that her grandchildren were never tired of hearing her talk. One of grandmamma's stories is so interesting that we will relate it in this place.
"A hundred years ago."—Page 420.
"A hundred years ago."—Page 420.
To teach little Francis his letters
"Willit not sound very strange to you, my dear children," said old Mrs. Fairchild, "to hear me talk of people, whom I knew very well, who were born one hundred years or more ago? But when you know that I can remember many things which happened seventy years ago, and that I then knew several people who were more than seventy years old—even Henry will be able to make out more than a hundred years since the time that they were born."
"Stop, grandmamma," said Henry, "and I will do the sum in the sand."
Henry then took a stick and wrote 70 on the ground.
"Now add to that another seventy, and cast it up, my boy," said grandmamma.
"It comes," cried Henry, "to a hundred and forty; only think, grandmamma, you can remember people who were born a hundred and forty years ago: how wonderful!"
"And the odd years are not counted," remarked Emily: "perhaps if we were to count them they might come up to a hundred and fifty."
"Very likely, my dears," said the old lady; "so do you all sit still, and I will begin my story.
"One hundred and, we will say, forty years ago, there resided near the town of Reading, in which I was born, a very wealthy family, descended from the nobility, though through a younger son.
"There are some reasons why I shall not mention the real name, or rather the first name of the family, for it had two; I will therefore give the second, which was Vaughan. They had many houses and fine lands, amongst which was The Grove, the place which we have now.
"The Mrs. Vaughan who was married one hundred and forty years ago was a very particular woman, and insisted on abandoning all her pleasant places in the country, and residing in a very dull and dismal old-fashioned place just at the end of one of the streets at Reading. I shall tell you more about that place by-and-by.
"This lady had four daughters before she had a son; not one of these daughters ever married. They were reared in the greatest pride, and no one was found good enough to marry them. There was Mistress Anne, and Mistress Catherine, and Mistress Elizabeth, and Mistress Jane, for in these old days the title of Miss was not often used.
"After many years, Mrs. Vaughan added a son to her family, and soon afterwards became a widow.
"This son lived many years unmarried, and was what you, my children, would call an old man, when he took a young and noble wife. The daughter and only child of this Mr. Vaughan was about my age, and she is the person whose history I am going to tell you.
"There is a picture of her at The Grove in the room in which your dear cousins spent many of their early days. It is drawn at full length, and is as large as life. It represents a child, of maybe five years of age, in a white frock, placing a garland on the head of a lamb; behind the child, an old-fashioned garden is represented, and a distant view of The Grove house in which she was born."
"But, grandmamma," said Henry, "you have not told us that little girl's name."
"Her name was Evelyn," answered the old lady; "the only person I ever knew with that name."
"But it is a pretty one," remarked Lucy.
"There were a great many people to make a great bustle about little Evelyn, when she came: there were her own mother and her father, and there were the four proud aunts, and many servants and other persons under the family, for it was known that if no more children were born, Evelyn would have all her father's lands, and houses, and parks, and all her mother's and aunts' money and jewels.
"But, with all these great expectations, Evelyn's life began with sorrow. Her mother died before she could speak, and her father also, very soon after he had caused her picture to be drawn with the lamb."
"Poor little girl!" said Lucy; "all her riches could not buy her another papa and mamma. But what became of her then, grandmamma?"
"She was taken," added the old lady, "to live under the care of her aunts, at the curious old house I spoke of as being close at the end of the town of Reading; and she desired to bring nothing with her but the pet lamb, which, by this time, was getting on to be as big as a sheep, though it still knew her, and would eat out of her hand, and would frisk about her.
"The four Mistresses Vaughan were at the very head and top of formal and fashionable people. As far as ever I knew them, and I knew them very well at one time, they were all form, and ceremony, and outside show, in whatever they did, until they were far, very far advanced in years, and had been made, through many losses and sorrows, to feel the emptiness of all worldly things. But I have reason to hope that the eyes of some of them were then opened to think and hope for better things than this life can give; but I shall speak of them as they were when Evelyn was under their care, and when I was acquainted well with them.
"The entrance to the house where they lived was through heavy stone gates, which have long since been removed; and along an avenue formed by double rows of trees, many of which are now gone.
"I have often, when a little child, been taken by my nurse to walk in that avenue; and I thought it so very long, that had I not seen it since, I could have fancied it was miles in length."
"That is just like me, grandmamma," said Henry; "when I was a little boy, I used to think that the walk through Mary Bush's wood was miles and miles long."
"And so did I," added Emily; and then the story went on.
"At the farthest end of this avenue," continued grandmamma, "the ground began to slope downwards, and then the house began to appear, but so hidden by tall dark cypress-trees, and hedges, andwalls, I may call them, of yew and box and hornbeam, all cut in curious forms and shapes, that one could only here and there see a gable, or a window, or door, but in no place the whole of the front. The house had been built many, many years before, and it was a curious wild place both within and without, though immensely large. The way up to the door of the principal hall was by a double flight of stone steps, surmounted with huge carved balustrades. Nothing could, however, be seen from any window of the house but trees;those which were near being cut into all sorts of unnatural forms, and those which were beyond the garden growing so thickly as entirely to shut out the rays of the sun from the ground below."
"I should like to see that place, grandmamma," said Lucy.
"You would see little, my child," replied the old lady, "of what it was seventy years ago. I am told that it is altogether changed. But if the place was gloomy and stiff without, it was worse within, where the four old ladies ordered and arranged everything. I can tell you how they passed their days. They all breakfasted either in their own dressing-rooms or in bed, being waited upon by their own maids."
"Why did they do that, grandmamma?" asked Henry.
"I will tell you, my dear," answered the old lady. "At that time, when I was a little girl, and knew those ladies, people dressed in that stiff troublesome way which you may have seen in old pictures.
"The ladies wore, in the first place, very stiff stays; and those who thought much of being smart, had them laced as tight as they could well bear. Added to these stays, they wore hoops or petticoats well stiffened with whalebone. Some of these hoops were of the form of a bell with the mouth downwards—these were the least ugly; others were made to stand out on each side from the waist, I am afraid to say how far; but those made for grand occasions were nearly as wide as your arm would be, if it were extended on one side as far as it would go. Over these hoops came the petticoats and gowns, which were made of the richest silk—for a gown in those days would have cost thirty or forty pounds. Then there was always a petticoat and a train; and these, in full dress, were trimmed with the same silk in plaits and flounces, pinked and puckered, and I know not what else. The sleeves were made short andtight, with long lace trebled ruffles at the elbows; and there were peaked stomachers pinned with immense care to the peaked whalebone stays. It was quite a business to put on these dresses, and must have been quite a pain to walk in the high-heeled silk shoes and brilliant buckles with which they were always seen. They also wore watches, and equipages, and small lace mob caps, under which the hair was drawn up stiff and tight, and as smooth as if it had been gummed."
"Oh, I am glad I did not live then!" said Lucy, fetching a deep breath; "yet it is very pleasant to hear these stories of people who lived just before we did; and there is no harm in liking it, is there, grandmamma?"
"None in the least, my child," said grandmamma; "the persons who remember anything of those times are getting fewer and fewer every day. If young people, then, are wise, instead of always talking their own talk, as they are too apt to do, they will have a pleasure in listening to old persons, and in gathering up from them all they can tell of manners and customs, the very memories of which are now passing away. But now, Henry, my boy, you may understand why the Mistresses Vaughan always breakfasted in their own rooms; they never chose to appear but in their full dress, and were glad to get an hour or two every morning unlaced, and without their hoops.
"About noon they all came swimming and sailing down into a large saloon, where they spent the rest of their morning. It was a vast low room, with bright polished oaken floors, and with only a bit of fine carpet in the middle of it. They each brought with them a bag for knotting, and they generally sat together in such state till it was time for their airing.
"This airing was taken in a coach-and-four; and they generally went the same road and turned at the sameplace every day but Sunday throughout the week. They dined at two, and drank tea at five; for though they had some visitors who came to tea, they were too high to return these visits. They finished every evening by playing at quadrille; supped at nine, and then retired to their rooms."
"What tiresome people!" said Henry; "how could they spend such lives? I would much rather live with John Trueman, and help to thatch, than have been with them."
"But how did they spend their Sundays, grandmamma?" asked Emily.
"They went to church in Reading," answered the old lady; "where they had a grand pew lined with crimson cloth. They never missed going twice; they came in their coach-and-four; they did not knot on Sundays, but I can hardly say what they did beside."
Lucy fetched a deep breath again, and grandmamma went on.
"It was to this house, and to be under the care of these ladies, that little Miss Evelyn came, the day after her father's funeral. She was nearly broken-hearted.
"The Mistresses Vaughan were not really unkind, though very slow in their feelings; so, after the funeral, they soothed the child, taking her with them from The Grove to their own house, where she afterwards always remained. But they did another unfeeling thing, without seeming to be aware of it: Evelyn's nurse had been most kind to her, but she unhappily spoke broad Berkshire, and was a plain, ordinary-looking person; so she was dismissed, with a handsome legacy left by her master, and the poor little girl was placed under the care of a sort of upper servant called Harris. Harris was charged never to use any but the most genteel language in her presence,and to treat her with the respect due to a young lady who was already in possession of a vast property, though under guardians.
"Three handsome rooms in one wing of the house on the first floor were given to the little lady and Harris; and an inferior female servant was provided to wait upon them in private, and a footman to attend the young lady in public. It was not the custom for young children then to dine with the family; the only meal, therefore, which Evelyn took with her aunts was the tea, when she saw all the company who ever visited them; her breakfast and dinner were served up in her own rooms.
"She was required to come down at noon, and to go down and salute her aunts and ask their blessing; and whenever any one of them declined the daily airing, she was invited to take the vacant place as a great treat.
"Her education was begun by Harris, who taught her to read, to use her needle, and to speak genteelly; it was afterwards carried on by masters from Reading, for her aunts had no sort of idea of that kind of education which can only be carried on by intellectual company and teachers. Harris was told that no expense would be spared for Miss Vaughan; that her dress must be of the first price and fashion; that if she desired toys she was to have them, and as many gift-books as St. Paul's Church-yard supplied.
"As to her religious duties, Harris was to see that she was always very well dressed, and in good time to go to Church with her aunts; that she was taught her Catechism; and that she read a portion every day of some good book; one of the old ladies recommending theWhole Duty of Man, another Nelson'sFasts and Festivals, a third Boston'sFourfold State, whilst the fourth, merely, it is to be feared, in opposition to her sisters, remarked, halfaside to Harris, that all the books above mentioned were very good, to be sure, but too hard for a child, and therefore that the Bible itself might, she thought, answer as well, till Miss Vaughan could manage hard words. As Harris herself had no particular relish for any of the books mentioned, she fixed upon the Bible as being the easiest, and moreover being divided into shorter sections than the other three.
"So Evelyn was to have everything that a child could wish for that could be got with money; and though Harris minded to the letter every order that was given her, yet she thought only of serving herself in all she did. In private with the child she laid praises and flattery upon her as thick as honey in a full honeycomb; she never checked her in anything she desired, so long as she did nothing which might displease her aunts, should it come to their knowledge; she scarcely ever dressed her without praising her beauty, or gave her a lesson without telling her how quick and clever she was. She talked to her of the fine fortune she would come into when she was of age; of her mamma's jewels, in which she was to shine; of the fine family houses; and, in short, of everything which could raise her pride; and there was not a servant about the house who did not address the little girl as if she had not been made of the same flesh and blood as other people."
"Poor little girl!" said Lucy.
"I am sorry for her," remarked Emily; "she must have been quite spoiled by all these things."
"We shall see," continued the old lady. "It was in a very curious way that I, many years afterwards, learned many particulars of the ways and character of this little girl in her very early years, before I was personally acquainted with her. After my eldest son was born, being in want of a nursemaid, Fanny, the very servantwho had waited on Miss Evelyn and Mrs. Harris, offered herself; and as I had known her well and loved her much, though I had lost sight of her for some years, I most gladly engaged her. She told me many things of Mrs. Harris and her little lady, which I never could have known otherwise. She said that Mrs. Harris was so much puzzled at the ways of the little girl, that she used often to speak of it to Fanny.
"'Miss Evelyn,' she said one day, 'is the queerest little thing I ever met with; I don't know where her thoughts are. When I am dressing her to go down to tea in the saloon, and putting on her nice smart dresses, and telling her to look in the glass and see how pretty she is—and to be sure she is as pretty as any waxwork—she either does not answer at all, as if she did not hear me, or has some out-of-the-way question to ask about her lamb, or some bird she has seen, or the clouds, or the moon, or some other random stuff; there is no fixing her to any sense.'
"'Perhaps, Mrs. Harris,' Fanny said, 'she has heard your praises, and those of other people, till she is tired of them.'
"'Pish!' answered Mrs. Harris; 'did you ever hear of anyone ever being tired of their own praises? The more they hear of them the more they crave them; but this child has not sense enough to listen to them. Do you know what it is for a person to have their wits a wool-gathering? Depend on it that Miss Vaughan, with all her riches and all her prettiness, is a very dull child; but it is not my business to say as much as that to the ladies; they will find it out by-and-by, that is sure. But it is a bad look-out for you and me, Fanny, with such chances as we have; for if Miss Evelyn was like other young ladies, we might be sure to make our fortune by her. I have known several people in my condition get such a hold onthe hearts of children of high condition, like Miss Vaughan, that they never could do without them in no way, in their after lives. But I don't see that we get on at all with this stupid little thing; though for the life of meI cannot tell what the child's head is running upon. She never opens out to me, or asks a question, unless it is about some of the dumb animals, or the flowers in the garden, and the trees in the wood.'
"I cannot tell what the child's head is running on."—Page 433.
"I cannot tell what the child's head is running on."—Page 433.
"'Or the moon or the clouds,' Fanny added. 'She asked me the other day who lived in the moon, and whether dead people went there.'
"It is very clear, from the conversation between Mrs. Harris and Fanny, that Evelyn passed for a dull child, and had very little to say, because she had not found anyone since she had left The Grove who would talk to her in her own way and draw out her young ideas, and encourage her to tell her thoughts. Her father had encouraged her to talk to him in her own way whilst he was spared to her; and her nurse had been the kindest, best of foster-mothers. Though, to be sure, she did speak broad Berkshire, and though she was what learned people would call an ignorant woman, nurse had the strongest desire to do right, for she had been made to feel that God was the friend of His creatures. She felt sure that He would help those who behaved well; and she did what she could to teach what she knew to her little girl. She told her that she must be good, and not proud, or she would never go to the happy world where angels are. She told her also, that though her mother was gone into another world, she knew and was sorry when she was naughty.
"Nurse was a particularly generous woman, and was always teaching the little lady to give things away; and she took great pains to make her civil to everybody, whether high or low.
"Nurse had loved to be much out of doors, and Evelyn loved it as much; and the two together used to ramble all about the place, into the fields and yards where animals were kept, and into the groves and gardens to watch the birds and butterflies, and to talk to the gardeners and the old women who weeded the walks. Nurse was always reminding Evelyn to take something out with her to give away; if it was nothing else than a roll or a few lumps of sugar from breakfast; for Evelyn's mother, just before her death, had said to her nurse:
"'My child may be very rich, teach her to think of the wants of the poor, and to give away.'
"But the more happy Evelyn had been with her nurse, the more sad she was with Harris. There was not anything which Harris talked of that the little girl cared for, and the consequence was that she passed for being very dull; because when Harris was talking of one set of things, she was thinking of something very different.
"When Harris wanted her to admire herself in her new frocks, when she was dressed to go down to tea, or at any other time, she was wishing to have her pinafore on, or that she might run down to her lamb, which fed in a square yard covered with grass, where the maids dried the clothes.
"Mr. Vaughan had died somewhat suddenly in the spring; the lamb was then only six weeks old. Evelyn came to live with her aunts immediately after the funeral; and the summer passed away without anything very particular happening.
"It was Harris's plan to indulge Evelyn as much as she possibly could, though she did not like the child; and therefore, when she asked to go out, which, by her goodwill, would have been every hour of the day, she went with her. When she went to take anything to her lamb,and to stroke it, orto hang flowers about its neck, Harris stood by her. But if Harris did not like Evelyn, she hated her pet still more; she pointed out to Evelyn that there were young horns budding on its brow; that it was getting big and coarse, and, like other sheep, dirty; and said that it would soon be too big for a pretty young lady like Miss Vaughan to stroke and kiss.
"'But Imustkiss it,' answered Evelyn, 'because I got poor papa once to kiss it; and I always kiss it in the very same place, just above its eyes, Harris—exactly there.'
"'Just between where the horns are coming, Miss Vaughan,' said Harris; 'some day, by-and-by, it will knock you down when you are kissing it, and perhaps butt you with its horns, till it kills you.'
"That same day Mrs. Harris told Fanny that she would take good care that Miss Vaughan's disagreeable pet should be put beyond her reach before very long—and, indeed, one fine morning, when Evelyn went down to the yard, the lamb was missing. There was much crying on the part of the little girl, and much bitter lamentation but her footman, having been told what to say by Harris, said to his little lady, that the young ram had got tired of the drying-yard, and had gone out into the woods to look for fresh grass and running water, and that he was somewhere in the park.
"'And is he happy?' asked Evelyn.
"'Very happy,' answered the footman; 'so don't cry about him, Miss.'
"'I will go and see if I can find him,' said the child.
"'You had better not go near him now,' said Mrs. Harris; 'when pet lambs become large sheep they often turn most savage on those who were most kind to them.'
"'He knew me yesterday,' replied the child, 'and letme stroke him. Would he forget me in one day?' and she burst into fresh tears."
"I am sorry for her," said Henry, rubbing the sleeve of his pinafore across his eyes.
"And there was one person who heard her," said grandmamma, "who was sorry for her also, and that was Fanny; but she did not dare to say anything because of Mrs. Harris."
The old lady then went on:
"When the summer was past, and the weather less pleasant, Mrs. Harris pretended to have a pain in her face, and instead of going out always with Evelyn, she sent Fanny.
"This was a pleasant change for the little lady. She found Fanny much more agreeable to her. And Fanny was surprised to find how Evelyn opened out to her during their walks.
"For several days Evelyn led Fanny about the groves and over the lawns of the park to look for the lamb. They could not find him, but the child still fancied that he was somewhere in the park.
"One morning Evelyn proposed that they should try the avenue, and look for the lamb in that direction. Fanny had no notion of contradicting Evelyn—indeed Harris had told her to keep her in good humour, lest she should tell her aunts that Harris seldom walked with her; so that way they went. They had scarcely got to one end of the long row of trees when they saw a plain-dressed woman coming to meet them from the other. Evelyn uttered a joyful cry, and began to run towards her; Fanny ran, too, but the little girl quite outstripped her.
"It was nurse who was coming; she had been forbidden the house; but she had often come to the lodge, and often walked a part of the way along the avenue, if it were only for a chance of seeing her child.
"Nurse was a widow, and had only one child living. He had a good situation in the school on the London road, which anyone may see at the entrance of the town. So nurse then lived alone, in a small house on that road.
"How joyful was the meeting between Evelyn and her nurse! how eagerly did the little girl rush into those arms which had been the cradle of her happy infancy!
"After the first moments of joy were past, they sat down on a fallen and withered bough, between the rows of trees, and talked long and long together; so long, that Evelyn was almost too late to be taken to her aunts at noon. They talked of many things; and the good nurse forgot not to remind Evelyn of what she had taught her by the desire of her mother; especially to remember to give; to be civil to all persons; to speak when spoken to; to say her prayers; and not to be proud and haughty.
"The nurse also took care to tell Evelyn, that when she talked of giving, she wanted nothing herself, being in her way quite rich, through the goodness of Mr. Vaughan.
"'So don't givemeanything, my precious child, but your love.'
"This meeting with nurse served the purpose of keeping alive all the simple and best feelings of Evelyn. The little one told her how her lamb had left her, and that they had been looking for it that very morning.
"'Well, my dear,' said the nurse, 'the poor creature is happier in the fields, and with its own kind, than you can make it; and if you are not too young to understand me, I would advise you to learn, from this loss of your lamb, henceforth not to give your heart and your time to dumb creatures, to which you can do little good, but to your own fellow-creatures, that you may help. Now, to make what I say plain, there is, at this very time, at the lodge, a pretty orphan boy, maybe two years of age, who has beentaken in for a week or so by Mrs. Simpson, at the lodge. She means to keep him till the parish can put him somewhere, for she cannot undertake to keep him without more pay than the parish will give, having a sick husband, who is a heavy burden upon her. Now, if you have—as I know you have—the means, why not help her to keep this little boy? Why not get some warm comfortable clothing for him, with your aunts' leave, and so help him forward till he wants schooling, and then provide for that?'
"'I will do it, nurse; I will do it,' answered Evelyn.
"'God bless you, my lamb!' said nurse.
"And soon after this nurse and Evelyn parted; but they both cried bitterly, as Fanny told me.
"The name of the baby at the lodge was Francis Barr; and, as Fanny said, he was a most lovely boy, with golden hair curling about his sweet face.
"Evelyn had only to mention him to her aunts, and they immediately ordered their steward to pay so many shillings a week to Mrs. Simpson, and to give another sum for his clothing; and this was, they said, to be done in the name of Miss Vaughan.
"They would have done better if they had let Evelyn look a little after the clothes, and, indeed, let her help to make them; but such was not their way; perhaps they thought Miss Vaughan too grand to help the poor with her own hands. But it is always easier for the rich to order money to be paid than to work with their own hands.
"Mrs. Harris was told of the meeting with the nurse by Evelyn herself; but the little girl did not tell her all that nurse had said, not from cunning, but because she was not in the habit of talking to Harris. She could not have told why she did not; but we all know that there are some people whom we never feel inclined to talk to, and we hardly know why.
"Mrs. Harris was, however, jealous of nurse, and thinking to put her out of her young lady's head, she used the liberty allowed her, and went one day to Reading, and bought a number of toys and gilt books."
"I wonder what they were, grandmamma," said Henry.
"Fanny did not tell me," answered the old lady, "and I had all this part of the story from Fanny.
"Evelyn, she said, was pleased with them when they came, and put them all in a row on a side-table in her sitting-room, and changed their places several times, and opened the books and tried to read them; but she was hardly forward enough to make them out with pleasure. However, she picked a few out from the rest, and told Fanny to put them in her pocket; for her plan was, that Fanny was to read them to her when they went out, which was done.
"The day after she had picked out the books, she asked for some paper and a pen and ink, and set herself to write, by copying printed letters. It was well she was in black, as she inked herself well before she had finished her letter.
"Harris did not ask her what she was doing; that was notherway; but she looked at what she had written when it was done, and found it was a letter to nurse, blotted and scrawled, and hard to be read. When this letter was finished, the child asked Fanny for some brown paper, and in this she packed most of the toys and the letter, and having sent for her footman, she told him to get a horse and ride to nurse's and give her the parcel and the letter.
"The man looked at Mrs. Harris, as doubting whether he was to obey. Mrs. Harris was sewing, and looked like thunder.
"'Miss Vaughan,' she said, 'did I hear aright? Is that parcel to be taken to nurse's?'
"'Yes, Harris,' answered Evelyn; 'those things are mine, and I am going to send them to nurse.'
"'Upon my word, Miss Vaughan, you have chosen a very proper present for the old woman; she will be vastly amused with all those pretty things.'
"This speech was made in much bitterness, and meant the very contrary to what the words expressed; but Evelyn thought she meant what she said, and she answered:
"'Yes, Harris, nurse will be so much pleased; I think she will put the things in a row on her chimney-piece.'
"Harris, as Fanny told me, did not answer again immediately, but sat with her head stooped over her work, whilst Evelyn repeated her directions to Richard; and Richard looked for his orders to Mrs. Harris.
"'Don't you hear what Miss Vaughan says, Richard?' she at length said, as she looked up with very red cheeks and flashing eyes; 'what do you stand gaping there for? Don't you know that all Miss Vaughan's orders are to be obeyed? Make haste and carry the parcel.'
"'And tell nurse to read my letter,' said Evelyn; 'and to send me word if she has read it; she will be so glad, I know.'
"As soon as Richard was gone, Harris called Evelyn to her, and, lifting her on her knee, she began to kiss and praise her, and to coax her, but not in the old way by telling her of her beauty and her grandeur, but by flattering her about her kindness and her gratitude to nurse.
"'I love nurse, Harris,' answered Evelyn.
"'And she deserves it too, Miss Vaughan,' replied Harris; 'she took care of you when you could not have told if you were ill-used. Little ladies should always remember those who were kind to them in their helpless years. Come now, tell me what nurse said to you whenyou saw her last. I am sure she would tell you nothing but what was very good.'
"'She told me,' said Evelyn, 'about my mamma being an angel; and she told me that if I was good, and not selfish, and gave things away, that I should go to heaven too; I should then, she said, be like a lamb living under the care of a good shepherd.'
"Harris, on hearing this, as Fanny said, looked about her in that sort of wondering way which people use when they are thoroughly surprised; but it being very near twelve at noon, she had no time to carry on the discourse further then. Evelyn's frock required to be changed, and her hair put in order; and then, as the custom was, Mrs. Harris had to lead the child into the saloon to make her curtsey, and leave her till the bell rang to recall her.
"When Harris had left the child with her aunts, she came up again to her own apartments. She came with her mouth open, being all impatience to let out her thoughts to Fanny.
"'Who would have guessed,' said she, 'that the wind blew from that quarter, Fanny? and here I have been beating about and about to find out the child, and trying to get at her in every way I could think of, all the while missing the right one.'
"'What do you mean, Mrs. Harris?' said Fanny.
"'What do I mean?' answered Harris; 'why, how stupid you are, girl! have I not been trying to get to the child's heart every day these six months, by indulging her, and petting her, and talking to her of her pretty face and fine expectations, and all that? and has she not all along seemed to care as little for what I said as she would for the sound of rustling leaves?'
"'Will you deny that it is very true?' answered Fanny;'I think she has heard of her grandeur and those things, till they are no news to her.'
"'Maybe so,' answered Harris; 'but I never yet met with the person, young or old, who could be tired out with their own praises, however they may pretend.'
"'I was never much tired in that way,' answered Fanny.
"'Maybe not,' said Mrs. Harris; 'what was anyone to get by honeying one like you? Well, but to return to this child. I did set her down to be none of the sharpest; but for once I think I was mistaken. It is not often that I am; but I have got a little light now; I shall get on better from this day forward, or I am much mistaken.'
"'What light is it?' said Fanny.
"'Why, don't you see,' answered Harris, 'that young as Miss Evelyn is, that old nurse has managed to fill her head with notions about death, and heaven, and being charitable, and giving away; and that the child's head runs much, for such a child, on these things?'
"'I cannot wonder at it,' answered Fanny, 'when one thinks how much the poor orphan has heard and seen of death.'
"'And who has not heard and seen much of death, Fanny?' answered Mrs. Harris: 'but for all that we must live and make our way in life.'
"Then, as if she thought that she might just as well refrain from opening herself any more to Fanny, she sent her away on some errand, and there the discourse ended. But not so the reflections of the young servant on what she had said; she had let out enough to make her quite understand a very great change, which took place from that day, in the behaviour of Harris to Evelyn.
"She never spoke to her again about her beauty and riches; she never praised her on these accounts; but sheconstantly spoke of her goodness in giving away, of her civility and courtesy, of her being so humble, of the very great merit of these things, and of the certainty that these things would make her an angel in glory."
"Oh, the cunning, wicked woman!" cried Henry.
"Was not this sort of flattery more dangerous, grandmamma, than the other?" asked Lucy.
But Emily said nothing; for Emily's besetting sin was vanity, and she felt that she should have been more hurt by the praises of her beauty than of her goodness.
"By this new plan Harris gained more on Evelyn," continued grandmamma, "than she had done by the first, and the child, as time went on, became more attached to her.
"Two years passed away after this affair of sending the toys to nurse, without many changes. Nurse was not allowed to see Evelyn again, though the little lady often sent her a note, and some little remembrance to nurse's son. Masters came from Reading to carry on Miss Vaughan's education; and she proved to be docile and industrious. She still kept up her love of being out of doors; and being of a friendly temper, she often visited the cottages close about, and took little presents, which caused the poor people to flatter her upon her goodness, as much as Harris did. She had no pet animal after she had lost her lamb; but she became very fond of Francis Barr, and often walked with Fanny to see him. He soon learned to know her, and to give her very sweet smiles in return for all her kindness; and when he could walk by himself, he always hastened to meet her.
"He was nearly six years younger than Evelyn, and was, therefore, not much more than four during the summer in which she was ten.
"In the early part of that summer she used to go with Fanny most days to the lodge, to teach little Francis hisletters, and talk to him about God; and they used to hear him say his prayers. Evelyn loved him very much, and Harris praised her before every one for her goodness to this poor orphan.
"It would have been strange if all this dangerous flattery, together with the pleasure the dear child had in bestowing kindnesses, which, after all, cost her but little, had not so worked on her mind as to make her vain and self-satisfied.
"But her heavenly Father, who had guided her so far, was not going to leave her uncared for now. He who had begun the work with her was not going to leave it imperfect.
"I am now come nearly to what I may call the end of the first part of my story, and to the end of the young, and sunny, and careless days of the life of dear Evelyn Vaughan.
"These careless days, these days of young and comparatively thoughtless happiness, were suddenly finished in a very sad and awful way.
"I will not enter into many particulars of that affair, because it will give you pain. In a few words it was this: Late one evening, in the summer, little Francis Barr was playing in the road, when a carriage, coming along at a full gallop, the horses having taken fright and thrown the postillion, came suddenly upon the poor child, knocked him down, and killed him on the spot. There was no time to send the news to the great house; and, as it happened, Evelyn and Fanny went the next morning, before breakfast, to give the little boy his lesson. When arrived at the lodge, they found the door open and no one within. Mrs. Simpson had just gone into the garden to fetch more flowers to lay over the little boy. Not seeing anyone in the kitchen, they walked into the parlour, andthere poor Evelyn saw her little loved one cold, yet beautiful, in death, having one small hand closed upon a lily, and the other on a rose.
"Evelyn could not mistake the aspect of death; she uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless to the floor. She was carried home, but she was very ill for many days; and I may truly say never perfectly recovered from that time.
"But now, my dear children," added grandmamma, "I begin to feel tired, and have only finished half my story; if all is well, we will come here to-morrow, and then I shall hope to finish it."
"I wish it was to-morrow," said Henry: and his sisters joined in the wish.